Pubdate: Fri, 22 Mar 2002
Source: Shelby Star, The (NC)
Copyright: 2002sThe Shelby Star
Contact:  http://www.shelbystar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1722
Author: Barry Smith, Star Raleigh Bureau
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?186 (Oxycontin)

TALLEY PLEADS HIS CASE

RALEIGH - Supporters and family members of Dr. Joseph Talley filed into a 
nearly packed board room Thursday and heard the Grover physician testify 
that he used his best judgment in treating patients with chronic pain.

Those same people also heard Fayleen Huffstetler of Cherryville tell the 
N.C. Medical Board that Talley had prescribed narcotics for her headache 
pains even after she told him she was a drug addict.

The testimony came during the first of what is expected to be three days of 
hearings before the N.C. Medical Board.

Board attorneys have accused Talley of deviating from the accepted and 
prevailing standards of practicing medicine in the way he treats some 
patients and prescribes narcotics to them.

If the medical board agrees with the allegations, Talley could lose his 
medical license. The federal Drug Enforcement Administration has already 
suspended his privileges of prescribing controlled substances and linked 
the doctor to 23 overdose deaths.

After Thursday's hearing, Talley said his attorney had recommended that he 
no comment on the proceeding. He did express some concern about the 
situation, however.

"I'm scared because so much is at stake," he said.

Specifically, board attorneys accuse Talley of failing to perform physical 
examinations on many patients before prescribing powerful narcotics, 
failing to order laboratory tests for pain patients, failing to find out if 
patients had received medications from other doctors and failing to use 
non-opiate drugs before prescribing opiates.

Talley is also accused of failing to insist that patients get all of their 
prescriptions filled at a single pharmacy so that care could be adequately 
monitored. And the board's attorneys allege Talley self-prescribed the drug 
commonly referred to as "Fen-Phen" for obesity.

Talley admitted that he used Fen-Phen pills that he had prescribed for his 
own patients after they decided that they did not want to use them anymore. 
He said he encouraged them to bring him the extra pills rather than throw 
them in the wastebasket. But he said he did not realize what he was doing 
was illegal at the time.

"The only thing at stake here was my own health," Talley told the board.

Board attorney Bill Breeze put forth a number of patient files that 
indicated Talley had not given patients a physical examination before 
prescribing narcotics, including the opioid pain medicine OxyContin.

Talley admitted that he did not give physical examinations to some of his 
patients, although he said he did provide partial physicals at times.

He said he had no objection to giving physical exams, but noted that such 
exams require time.

"There's so many things you've got to cover," Talley said. "Something has 
got to be sacrificed."

Talley said that with acute pain symptoms, physical exams might be helpful 
in determining treatment. "With chronic pain, the yield on a physical exam 
is extremely low," he said.

Ms. Huffstetler said Talley treated her from 1980 until April 2001. She 
said Talley never gave her a physical exam.

"There was no examination," she said. "I don't ever remember him having a 
stethoscope around his neck."

She said that when she first started seeing Talley, she was suicidal and 
complained of depression, anxiety attacks and migraine headaches.

She moved to Georgia in 1986, but continued to keep in periodic phone 
contact with Talley and would come back to Grover about once every 12 to 18 
months for a doctor's visit. She moved back to Cherryville in 2000.

Ms. Huffstetler said she was a drug addict and had been in rehabilitation 
four times and that she had asked Talley not to prescribe narcotics to her 
because of her addiction.

She said that her husband, Roger Huffstetler, died of an OxyContin overdose 
on April 12, 2001. Talley had prescribed the drug to her husband the 
previous month, she said.

"My husband was seeing him for a second time for kidney stones," she said. 
She said the two discussed OxyContin and that Roger Huffstetler told Talley 
he had been taking 40 milligrams of the drug, four times a day.

"He got his prescription pad out," she said. "He said, 'I hope you're 
right, because if you're wrong, they'll send me up the river for this one.'"

Under heated cross-examination by Talley's attorney, Robert Clay, Ms. 
Huffstetler admitted that her husband was already a drug addict before he 
received the prescription from Talley. She said her husband had been using 
her narcotics to support his addiction.

"You used Dr. Talley, didn't you?" Clay asked.

"Probably," Ms. Huffstetler responded.

Clay asked her if she didn't beg Talley for a shot to help her with her pain.

"Didn't you beg for the shot?" Clay asked.

"He was the one with the smarts," Ms. Huffstetler responded.

"You were smart enough to lie to him weren't you?" Clay asked.

"It doesn't take much smarts to lie," she answered.

She then compared her situation to that of a diabetic.

"If your children was a diabetic, would you feed them sugar?" she asked 
rhetorically.

Another one of Talley's patients also testified, but in closed session, 
said Dale Breaden, a spokesman for the Medical Board. He said the patient 
had requested anonymity. State law allows for closed sessions to protect 
patient confidentiality.

Breeze said he expects to call two more witnesses today. Then Talley's 
lawyer will present his case.

Some people drove to Raleigh to show support for Talley.

One of them was John Mende, a Forest City lawyer who has been a patient of 
Talley's since 1996. He was injured in an accident in 1981.

"My previous doctor did nothing," Mende said. He said that because of the 
severe pain in his leg caused by the injury, he would not be able to walk 
around today if it were not for Talley. He said the OxyContin prescribed by 
Talley had helped him.

Breaden said the board could make a ruling in the case as early as Monday.
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